Posted by Danger on

Sep 18th, 2016

Guidebook Plus is the best way to stay up to date on route safety status at LD

Guidebook Plus, the online supplement to 2012′s Rock Climbing Taiwan guidebook, has been updated for September 2016. The full online version is here and the PDF version designed for easy printout for reading at the crag is here.

Recent major developments include rockfall in the backdoor area that has rendered a few routes unclimbable, pull testing of bolts, and new trad ascents.

Rockfall at Backdoor

photo – A-lang

Reported by local climber A-lang, a major rockfall in the backdoor area in June in the backdoor B2 area has rendered a few routes near Old Man Wall unclimbable. Routes 67, 70, and 71 were affected.

304 AustriAlpin Bolts

photo – Austrialpin

Last year the discovery that some older Petzl Collinox bolts previously believed to be made of marine grade 316 stainless steel were in fact, made of 304, shook the Taiwan climbing community and meant many more routes were now suspect.

This year it has been discovered that Austrialpin glue-in bolts used in some routes in the Backdoor B2 area as well as Lower Dragon Ridge outside of First Cave are also 304 and not 316 steel as previously believed.

Pull Testing

photo -HydraJaws

Extensive pull testing has been done on nearly all the 304 stainless steel bolts at popular areas in Long Dong except for the Austrialpin bolts previously mentioned, which are unable to be tested due to the shape of the bolt. These tests involve pulling each bolt 5 times to a load of 8KN, each time holding the peak load for 30 seconds.

These tests have uncovered a number of failed bolts, and also “passed” many other ones. The safety of whether routes with completely “passed” bolts is not entirely clear so Guidebook Plus errs on the side of caution and marks these routes still as unsafe(red color.) For more daring climbers comfortable climbing on tested and passed 304 bolts, Climbio provides detailed pull test results.

New Trad Routes

photo – Nathan Ball

New trad routes have been put up officially and unofficially in several areas of Long Dong including the Grand Auditorium, Music Hall, and Euro Wall.

Because of Long Dong’s history of low-key first ascents, many of these climbs are not claimed as official First Ascents(FA) but as First Recent Ascents(FRA). However, the recent ascent of “Blade”, a new 5.11 in the Music Hall area, is confirmed to be an official first ascent by Cheang Qing Xin.

Posted by Danger on

Sep 3rd, 2016

In the last two years, shiny new sports centers have started popping up in New Taipei City, each with its own Entreprises-built climbing wall. The quality and design of these contract-built climbing facilities has varied greatly, but the Xizhi one, with its angular, orange, white, and gray panels, and Mallorca-esque arch shape has been tantalizingly promising.

Situated on the second floor of a swimming pool, the climbing gym itself occupies the entire level and is surprisingly spacious

It’s not the biggest climbing wall in town – STONE wins that race by a mile, but it uses its 218 square meters of climbing space well. Every facet of the main boulder has climbable area for a surprising amount of climbing packed into a moderately sized structure. The island style boulder design also creates a totally different experience from typical climbing gyms where the walls surround the climbers. Here the climbing area is center stage, surrounded by plenty of space for climbers to rest and spectate.

Amenities

Downward dog your heart out

Amenities here are as good as you’ll find in Taipei – no foot baths, but you have a yoga and stretching area with foam rollers, simple but ample spectator seating, tables to eat or relax at, and a TV to watch climbing videos on. A slackline, and fingerboard are supposed to be in the works as well.

The bathrooms are Taipei sports center quality – clean, with water dispensers and showers. Whereas Red Rock has one stingily-used wall mounted AC cooling the entire gym, Xizhi has the real thing – five commercial grade units blasting arctic temperatures at full strength. This may be the most comfortable climbing gym in Taipei.

Climbing

The climbing itself is a mix of incredible terrain held back by mediocre routesetting. The wall itself is world-class. The arch is a multifaceted, geometric wonder with every angle and shape you could think of. From vertical, slab, and slightly overhung to roof, to multi-angled terrain. Climbing this thing is akin to climbing something outside, dihedrals, aretes and all.

However, uninspired holds and routesetting detract from the experience. The holds on the wall are sourced completely from the wall manufacturer – EP. While you’ll find every type of hold on the wall – from crimps to slopers to jugs or pinches, what you won’t find is much variety – many holds are repeated, and all the holds feature the same coarse texture and matte color scheme common to EP holds.

The routes are ostensibly color-coded, but routefinding is still frustratingly difficult on many walls because holds of the same color are used closely together on different routes. I talked to the setter and he said they will use tape to help delineate routes, but for the time being it’s difficult at best and impossible many times to isolate a single route on a wall.

The quality of the setting itself is not stellar, but not that bad. However route difficulty is bipolar – either quite easy or very hard, with little middle ground. Along with the colored hold issue, this makes climbing the set routes an exercise in mild frustration.

Despite all this the gym is somehow still quite fun to climb at. There are enough holds on the wall to make up interesting routes on any part of the wall fairly easily. Ignore the colors, make up your own routes, play around on the mutli-faceted terrain, and you’ll have a good time.

Posted by Danger on

May 5th, 2016

Those who care about and visit Longdong often, all know that many bolts need to be replaced soon.

With the support of many climbers, we started the “Longdong Re-Bolt Project” in 2012. We will replace 2000 stainless steel bolt based on its material, year, and location, with titanium bolts which are much more suitable for a seaside crag.

Due to the massive scale of the task and the fact that everyone involved has a full time job, the progress has been slow and delayed. Also, to reduce the need for future generations to re-rebolt, damaging the rock further, besides purchasing P-Type and U-Type titanium bolt, we’re also trying to produce our own custom-made titanium bolts in partnership with top tier manufacturer Fusheng Precision Co. Ltd.. We hope our bolts can be even higher quality and better suited for our seaside crag than those on the market, thus allowing the next generation of climbers to appreciate our beloved Long Dong.

Over the years we have used many stainless steel bolts from different major brands. Although the international certification provided a guarantee of strength, it did not guarantee service life – which is the main issue we are facing. Therefore we tried to look for bolts made of materials that are more resistant to seaside corrosion. However we could not find any with actual simulated service life tests. Hence, we started to develop our own titanium bolt.

We have decided that besides than the standard EN959 strength test, we will also perform the ASTM-B368 (CASS) copper-accelerated acetic acid salt spray test to simulate 50 years of seaside corrosion, then perform further pull test to ensure a long service life (We’re still working on adding another corrosion resistant test “ASTM-G36 Boiling Magnesium Chloride Test”). Also, for quality control, once mass produced, every bolt will go through x-ray examination and sampled pull tests.

If the project fails, Doc intends to pay for the process without using the Rebolt Project funds. If it succeeds, because we do not seek commercial benefit and have limited manpower, time and resources, hence we will carry out the CE/UIAA equivalent testing internally for quality confirmation purposes, but do not plan to send the bolts to be CE/UIAA certified. We will publish the testing data, video, and pictures for everyone to see soon.

Longdong is Taiwan’s climbing mecca; the coastal crags does not only reminds us the great memories from the past but also ignites our passion. It will be there for the next generation. Bolt is still an essential part of the climbing and technology has not solved the issues of bolt. The stones of Long Dong can only bear through the process of bolting, de-bolting, and rebolting that many times. Hence we are taking a more cautious approach, not only to reduce the risk of accidents but also for the sake of the long term development of Long Dong climbing. This is why we have purchased a pull tester to find out which bolts need to be replaced first as well as to better understand the localized effects that the rock and environment have on the bolts at Long Dong. The replacement schedule for the bolts and the details of the rebolt plan’s execution have been discussed at length within the group.

We will soon create a “Longdong Rebolt Project” official website which will be online soon as well as a FAQ page, to allow climbers to gain better insight into the project.